Watch Brave New Voices

Team New York City

Foster Bears By Justin Long-Moton and Sean Baucom

Toy stores are a lot like foster homesInnocence plastered across the walls

The aisles, isolated hallwaysPerfect place to find a packaged hugThe laughter of children juggled by artificial handsFalling from each side of the boxRobots and toy chests Happiness locked behindThe hope of a child unwrapped inside of a family

When you walk into this store Into this houseEveryone is in a jolly mood The magnitude of amazement is that of a grand scaleAnxious because today maybe the day someone takes you homeThe heart of a happy costumer looking for that perfect "gift" Perfect child, with meaningless palms, eager to be called parents

Floor paved by the outstretched silhouettes of our childhoodsThe ripped bed sheets, blankets that don't smell like familyI know what it means to borrow a home This shelf, never cradled our bodies like mommas running wombWe made ourselves visual for the reachBut when arms lack affectionEverything cute about us slips through the cuddleLike hula hooping through barbed wireI have had the home torn from my fleshEvicted the FAO Schwartz from my skin

A lazy assembly line kissing decomposition onto our foreheads Lying every question I asked"Are you coming back for me?"Our skins been waiting, pelt shedding a decade of false hopesMother I thought I heard your footprints crawling to my bedsideBut it was just the cash register....

I remember the day everything all changedThe time I spent alone holding my sidesThere was no hiding in a house with a thousand boxesCompacting all the same storyMy mother lost, swallowed by drugs And a grandmother who couldn't play substitute

Knee to chest, attempting to rock myself into hibernationYou have never heard the mourning cry of a grizzle bear? I was shivering in the back seat of a police vanThat creaks more like a starving Tonka truckI was 4 years youngBut a sunrise old enough to knowI'd never see the other side of my front door again

Open me up, unravel me beautifulBeneath the rubble of a bedroomThat feels like a caged cartMy side has been scolding for some time nowToo many nights I cried my buttons outThe linen of a lonesome home untanglingFrom the tender of my torso

I thought the knitting of a guardians touch was suppose to hold me togetherMy breath left dangling out of my mouth like a loose limbWe tried to stitch our self's back together

I can't caress my own flesh woundsThe bones of our ribcage will always braid questions like"Why didn't you want me?"(Why didn't you want me?) Where was your heart when you left me? (Where was your heart when you left me?) How many nights did you cry yourself to sleep? (How many nights did you cry yourself to sleep?)Did you ever on come back? (Did you ever come back?)

Will I ever be good enough?

Amber Alert by Jesica Blandon and Ka'Mone Felix

Today, 500 faces will learn the scrape of a forest Their cheekswill forever hold the red hiding beneath the fingernails of the gravel they will be dragged through tonight 500 women will go missing 500 women who all learned how to stay visible for the cat callsfor the men for the camera don't we all always want all eyes on us this is how to stay beautiful teach our selves how to stay beautiful we crimp. curl. blow. straighten. Grease. Scrub every inch, make it shine .exfoliate. Slather. style. stuff. comb. Women do crazy things in attempts to find themselvesThey go missingThey chew their tongues into kaleidoscopesAnd gift boxes They become milk carton facesAnd 9 o'clock news segmentsDusty attic photographsLiquor and casketsechoesAnd dead bodiesAnd dead bodies

Britanee DrexelIs A 17 year old girl from Rochesterwith a smile like 32 porcelain dolls standing hand in hand her laughreminiscent of ocean breeze bathing in the moon light some would say she was Nile river rapidsdancing beneath the hum of eyeliner her eyesthree shade of contacts purchased over the counter her tonguethe first blazing sunset you'd ever witnessed red and roaring with a mouth like a burning toy chestShe was last spottedOn April 25thLeaving a Myrtle Beach HotelThere has been no activity on her cell phoneOr ATM account since.

BritaneeImagine that you'd have found your voice 6 years ago instead of twoWhat kind of god would you pray toWould your arms have committed suicide without telling you?Would you be the girl who plays with fireOr the one who falls in love with it?Would you be here ?Would you be here now?Instead of magician kissedAnd duffel bag broken?

In NYC alone,1 in every 8 womenWill fall victim to their beautyWill be foundBound and strapped To the pounding of a car trunk

They are phantom pom-pom girls with the innocence of mystery plastered to their backs the trees don't have eyes but we've plastered their faces to the woods Here The trees smell like the smolder of a thousand grieving families like the burning of a thousand flat irons sitting in the bellies of dresserssomewhere in the rooms of sisters and daughters

look at the casket they've thrown themselves into we can still hear them whisper"in case I go missing at least I will be pretty enough for news coverage "

tonight 500 women will go missing don't we all always want all eyes on us.

Childhood By Justin Long and Ishmael Islam

This one goes out to the freckle faced girl with pig tailsTo the boySchool yard fist and a craving for pasteThe Teddy Graham titansAnd sandbox cadetsWho hold monkey bars like the fathers who forgot themSwallowing peppermint asteroids down the esophagusForgetting the natural taste of mommy's broccoliUgghh broccoli

You, bonfire, of laughterIgnited in the woods of a classroomHave you unlearned the scent of recess?

Chocolate milks, dreams folded into paper airplanesThat got trapped in the office cabinet or sent to prison cellsDid you ever lock Bowser up?Hurdling over the fire pitsEat the mushroom! To grow into a better manMario taught us self-worth every time he saidIt's A Me!Basking in the sandbox with Matchbox trucksYour hands so micro, and girls never cared if your game was softCuz before Xbox 360, there wasSEEEEGGGGGAAAAA

"Somebody farted P U, Where did it come fromFrom you!" You-yu-yu yu yu Gi OoooooohMy God! Did you hear about stoop kid?The only existing rumor, never about a girl on her knees in the staircase

We knew Crayola on a first name basisBut colorblind to the struggleDidn't know our best friends were 2 shades darker

Or lighter than the days when you had no business suits and a 9-5Just a T-Shirt of your favourite cartoonAnd a lunchbox of Pokémon stickers

Cuz Pokémon taught usTo be very the best, like no one ever was!

This is for the boyShaking kneesSitting at the back of the class with a love note forThe girl he wants to share his PB & J with

Check yes if you do, No if you don't

That's when providing was a pure act of the heart

Like the first time Urkle met Laura (drop mic)Did I do that?!

Somewhere, along the commute fromMud stained trousers to neck tiesWe forgot about the candy canes in the cracks of our skullsSo when you walk into work tomorrowGreet your boss with a *Will & Jazz handshake*

Believe the wheels of tricyclesAre still spinning in your stomachsYou just have to embrace, your inner youLove yourself enough to find the love of your lifeAnd when you see, tell her, I CHOOSE YOU!

We're all still Rugrats riding shotgun on the magic school busSouls full of fire and KamehamehasSuper saiyan! when we assemble the skiesTo roar Thunder Thunder Thundercats *point to audience* HOOOOOOOOOO!Tell Chuckie there ain't nothing cheesy about a kid being a kid

Favorite Color By Jay Davis

Mom,I wish I knew your favorite color.The only one of God's many crayons that gets you to sit up straighter.To unbraid your spine from a roach egg infested headboard.I bet its red.Like a sea I've never seenBut hear quite often in your voice late at night.If it is,I will strip my skin off my body.Bare crimson flesh.I'm sure that you'd look at me more oftenIf I was the color that makes you smile.

But maybe it's blue.A sky light shade that can only be achieved by swallowing the saltiest seaI will drown in the Pacific Ocean for a kiss on my corpse cheekBecause I often forget you have lips.Only reminded when the moon gets home before I doThey bite.Sting like thunderclapsAnd you are oblivious to this.

Tell me it's black.I will have no problem with ripping out these weak strands of hairAnd stitching them to the left side of your chestSo you can feel your pulse in my scalp.Except I know you were never one to wade in the dark.That leaves white as my next option.If this is in fact your favorite colorI will be forced to Novocain myself speechless.Pull my teeth one by one out of my mouth and into my palmFist full of smiles that I usually only bless silence with.I have a low tolerance for painBut masochism would be worth it.

You love on a grayscale.Like a schizophrenic paraplegicIs it because your seven siblings stripped the rainbow from your throat.Each draining a different color from the sky in your sound.A shaky squeak left in a scraped up voice boxI can barely hear.I want you to knowThat there is Technicolor lining the insides of my elbowsSo hug me, Mom.Pretend that you like me long enough to capture the ultraviolet in my flesh.Suffocate meCaved in shoulders and a rising bosomSqueeze the life out of me so that you can see rainbows againDon't see it as a homicideBut a sacrifice for the greater good.

I know that now you probably think I'm crazyThat this is just another one of my phases.But I'm not crazy, Mom.Humans just have crazy tendencies when we want someone to love us.I want you to stop living in black and white images.Pay close attention to the movement in your children's pigment.Maybe that way, you'll finally see that all five of us are in fact your favorite color.

Watch Brave New Voices

ways to watch HBO

HBO is home to the most talked about programs on television - from groundbreaking series, films, documentaries and sports to the biggest blockbuster movies available anywhere. And it's never been easier to watch HBO programs - when you want, where you want.